Recently, a post titled <35 militia police officers use
their real names to denounced the Yuncheng (Shandong) county party
secretary> became red hot on the Internet and drew attention from netizens.
This denunciation was signed by 35 police officers from Yuncheng, with their
real names and mobile phone numbers listed. Even the phone numbers of
the top government leaders of Yuncheng were listed. But when a
reporter followed up, many of the police signatories said that their names
were used without their knowledge. The Yuncheng party committee said
that the post was inaccurate, given that the signatories were unaware and
three of them are even deceased already.

The official preference has always been to encourage
"denunciation using real names" because that would be easier to investigate
and verify. But many citizens prefer to denounce anonymously because
of the fear of retaliation by the enemies. The conflict between using
real names versus anonymity has now produced a strange hybrid -- a
denunciation using seemingly real names that were in fact forged. This
time, the forged names were of 35 police officers who denounced the county
party secretary for practising deception, handing out illegal job
promotions, requisitioning land by force, misuse of police power, etc.
This was an astonishing event.

Why were the names forged? According to the news
reports, there appeared to have been two reasons. Firstly, this was
done to attract attention so that the mass audience will form public opinion
pressure. According to the news report, the particular information had
previously circulated on the Internet. However, such information is
too "commonplace" and does not draw much attention. But once the
gimmicky <35 police officers use their real names to make an denunciation>
is added, the result was an Internet storm. Secondly, given incidents
such as the Wang Shuai case, denouncers face certain risks and costs when
they use their real names to make denunciations on the Internet.

So this demonstrated why there were two other pieces of
news on the same day. In the first news report, it was pointed out
that there are too many criticisms of the government and denunciations of
government officials that are scattered all over the Internet. This
meant that unless an item carries something refreshing, it will be probably
sink into oblivion. Thus, the Jiaozuo government announced that it was
going to send special people to read and respond to Internet posts. In
the second news report, it was pointed out that there were too many cases in
which denouncers were retaliated against. The result was a severe
erosion of public confidence in the government. This meant that it was
inevitable that the four officials involved in the Wang Shuai case would
have to be punished in order to restore public confidence.

It remains to be seen whether the Jiaozuo government is
interested in collecting critical opinions, or just interested in keeping an
eye on negative information and maintaining the so-called image of the
government. If the Jiaozuo government is only interested in arresting
critics such as Wang Shuai, then they should not bother. Although the
Wang Shuai case was eventually overturned and the officials involved were
punished, the bad influence had already been spread. The key to
restoring public confidence is to eliminate the public anxiety that "I may
become the next Wang Shuai."

According to the news report, the relevant departments in
Yuncheng are busy checking on the 35 named police officers. But if
these 35 police officers actually made the denunciation, would they dare
admit it now? While verification is needed, does anyone seem to care
about the substance of the denunciation? Online surveys showed that
the netizens believe that the matters in the denunciation are true.
But what how much hope can we have in what the Yuncheng county party
secretary and the relevant departments will find out in their investigation?

If the investigation turned out that the names of the
denouncers were forged, then the denounced officials may breathe a sigh of
relief because the matter can be dropped. But this phenomenon of using
forged names to make a denunciation should be a warning to society: Why are
so many "injustices" being forced to be aired only in a virtual network
world? Why do they require "something special" to attract attention?
Why do the denouncers have to carefully conceal their own identities and use
a group of other people to expose the conflicts?

"Using fake names to make a denunciation" is not a good
start. When the two forces collide together, this may become a normal
method to make denunciations in the future. We have been saying that
the Internet era has made it easy for citizens to express themselves freely.
But if we enter an era of "using fake names to make denunciation," all the
joy over the "progressive conditions" will become nought.

(1) Operation Chrysanthemum: As of April 28, many Kaixin
users received a message about using the Kaixin Garden online game: "May 12
will be here soon. In order to remember the dead and encourage the
survivors, let us do something ... (1) Please plant Chrysanthemum in
your patch with 68 hour maturation period so that they can all blossom on
May 12. (2) On May 12, please do not go and steal chrysanthemum from
other people's patches. (3) Please forward this message ... "
The message was initially sent by a person named "Sun Na" at 22:58 on April
28. As of 10am on April 30, the message has been forwarded 345,249
times and seen by 1,060,243 times. This is a display of the power of
social networking.

(2) Recently, it is common to append the following
statement to cross-postings on the Internet. A cross-post occurs when
an Internet users comes across an interesting post and then posts it on
another website in order to bring more attention. The message is this:
"The above content is purely reproduced from elsewhere. I do not
understand the import of this message. Therefore I bear no legal
responsibility for the content. Please do not cross provincial borders
to arrest me. For further details, please contact the original author.
Thanks!" The background of this message is the two cases of netizens
Wang Shuai and Wu Baoquan. The message purportedly appeared first in
the cross-post of the Southern Metropolis Daily article on Wu Baoquan, the
Inner Mongolian netizen who was arrested in another province for making an
Internet post. Somebody commented: "The sarcastic message to ask
people not to cross provincial borders to make an arrest expresses the
anxiety and helplessness of the present reality. But is also reflects
a mass tide of persistent non-cooperation."

At around 12:25pm, a man immolated himself by the
Liberation Stele in the Yuzhong district of Chongqing city. According
to eyewitnesses, the man was about 30 to 40 years old, and he poured
inflammable substance on himself and started a fire. The police and
fire brigade were summoned, and they put out the fire. When the
reporter arrived at the scene, he saw a "public statement" on the body of
the man. Just as the reporter was about to read the statement, the
police took it away. At 12:35pm, the man was taken away by an
ambulance. The police is starting an investigation.

On March 21, the netizen 'catandmouse' made five posts to
the The Voice of the People of Qilu section of the Bailing Information Net.
Three of these posts were about 35 police officers denouncing government
officials for misdeeds with with respect to land requisition, and they were
promptly deleted. The other two posts were about the same land
requisition problem but without the joint signatures from 35 police
officers, and they can still be read today.

The land requisition matter had been brought up by others
as early as early March. For example, a Sina.com blog post on
March 2 was about "the four-month struggle between the villagers of Lulou
village, Xuguantun town, Yuncheng county, Shandong province and the county
government over illegal land requisitioning." The content of that post
is essentially the same as that in the post by 'catandmouse.'

Although the "35 police officers" post by 'catandmouse'
was deleted, another blogger managed to re-post it on his own blog, where it
languished until it suddenly became red hot yesterday. The title of
this post is <35 militia police officers use their real names to denounce
the Yuncheng county (Shandong province) party secretary>. The charges
include practicing fraud and deception, exaggerating his accomplishments,
illegally handing out job promotions, land requisition and clearing, abuse
of police power, etc with the main focus being on the conflicts that
occurred over the land requisition.

The post listed the mobile and home phone numbers of the
country party secretary, the county mayor, the public security bureau
director and other government officials. It ended with the names and
mobile phone numbers of the 35 police officers. The post also claimed:
"At the time when this post was made, three of them have suffered
retaliation and an arrest warrant was approved for a fourth."

At China.com, netizens began to verify the information.
The netizen "Reform Command Center" contacted the Yuncheng county Personnel
Department and found out that the majority of the 35 petitioners were indeed
police officers. At KDnet, the netizen "Legal Advisor 201" said that
he called the listed telephone number of the county mayor and the other
party denied being the mayor.

This reporter began to call the 35 police officers whose
numbers are listed in the post. Some of the phones have been shut off
while others are non-working numbers. Some of the telephone owners
hung up immediately. The militia police officer Ma Jianjun told the
reporter that he has already received many calls from reporters. He
said that he only found out about this from the reporters, and he stated
that his name had been misappropriated. The militia police officer
Zhang Chuntao said that he knew nothing about the matter. The militia
police officer Liu Jinjiang said that he knew nothing about the case but had
just learned about it from someone else.

This reporter also called the telephone numbers of the
government officials. The answer was either wrong number of no pick
up. The so-called public security bureau Liu Rong told the reporter
that he has not been working in Yuncheng for several years ago. The
reporter checked the personnel directory of the Yuncheng county public
security bureau and could not find his name.

According to a female spokesperson from the Yuncheng
Publicity Department, "We are presently studying the matter of the 35
militia police officers using their real names to denounce the county party
secretary. We checked and there were maybe one or two people involved.
The rest of the people don't know anything. Those one or two people
were not happy with personnel moves within the department. Also, three
members of the list are deceased. So while this forum post is going to
impress everybody as being significant, its veracity is dubious."

At the Yuncheng forum over at Baidu, one netizen wondered:
"Zhang Chuiling (note: one of the signatories) died six months ago!"

Right now, the story about the police denunciation is
being deleted at the various Intenet forums, but the posts about land
requisition in Yuncheng are still there. This is a story that
generated only mild interest until the hook about 35 police officers using
their real names to denounce the party secretary was inserted.

[025] The Almighty
Power Of The Human Flesh Search (04/28/2009) (KDnet)
First someone uploads photos of a man urinating on the sign of an institute of
education somewhere while a crowd watches. To protect the persons, their
faces and the name of the institution were blurrerd out. All we know is
that it is an institute in Hunan or Hubei.

How long before someone comes up with this photo from the
Hunan Polytechnique Institute? How long before they find the individual?

Yesterday afternoon at 2:07pm on the pedestrian overpass
bridge in front of the Walmart store on Progress 2 Road, Shenzhen, the
Xin'an Street municipal administrator Lian Shitao was stabbed by the street
vendor Lao Shi on the left waist from behind. When Lian turned around,
he received another stab on his right chest. Lao Shi then fled, but
his wife Fang Jinqun was detained by the police.

According to the Xin'an Street Party deputy secretary Zhao
Junping: at just past 2pm, four municipal administrators enforced the law on
the pedestrian overpass near the Walmart on Progress 2 Road. One of
them was using a digital camera to record the action. There were seven
or eight street vendors on the bridge. But apart from Lao Shi and his
wife Fang Jinqun, the others managed to flee. The law enforcers began
to to advise the couple to leave. "They were only advising them to
leave and they had no intention to confiscate their wares."

According to another street vendor named Luo who was
present on the overpass, "at around 2pm, a municipal law enforcement vehicle
stopped under the bridge and the administrators came onto the bridge.
We hurriedly packed our stuff and ran away. But those two had too much
stuff and they did not get away in time."

According to the Xin'an Street law enforcement squad
captain named Liu, this couple was "incorrigible." The municipal
administrators have had multiple encounters with them. He produced
another photo of a previous encounter that was similar to the incident
yesterday -- Fang Jinqun used her camera phone to record the municipal
administrator who had the digital camera while holding a paper cutter in her other hand.

According to Zhan Junping, Fang Jinqun took out this knife
from her waist pack yesterday. The municipal administrator Lu Guangwei
used his left hand to grab the knife and got slashed. Meanwhile, his
right hand was bitten by Fang Jinqun.

In the two photos provided by the municipal
administration, the municipal administrators both had their hands on the
horizontal bar of Fang Jinqun's clothes rack, while Fang used her left hand
to grab the vertical bar. In the second hpoto, Fang Jinjun and Lu
Guangwei were both looking at Lao Shi, who was standing behind Lian Shitao.
In the photo, Lao Shi was holding a sharp knife about 30mm in length.

"This was a restricted knife." The first stab from
behind penetrated all the way to the front of the chest and blood burst out.
The third photo showed Lian Shitao turning around to see what was happening
behind him. At that moment, Lao Shi administered a second stab which
entered from the front of the right chest and broke a soft bone.

Lu Guangwei pushed Fang Jinqun aside and took Lian Shitao
down the bridge and rushed to a hospital. Lao Shi fled during the
chaos. One municipal administrator had Fang Jinqun under control.
The video showed that after her husband stabbed Lian and fled, Fang calmly
went back to take care of her wares.

According to the police, 28-year-old Fang Jinqun denied at
first that she was married to Lao Shi. The police quickly found out
the two were from Anqing (Anhui), lived near the Walmart and have two
children. Then Fang Jinqun said that she did not see her husband
injuring the municipal administrator. After being shown the photos,
she said that she only realized that her husband did this after seeing those
photos. Fang Jinqun admitted that before the stabbing, there was only
some jostling but no fighting.

The street vendors admit that they were breaking the law,
but they also find it unacceptable to have their wares being confiscated
sometimes. Some of them carry knives to defend themselves. Zhao
Junping said that the Xin'an Street administrators usually advise the street
vendors to leave. He said that they are doing their job for the sake
of the appearance of the city. "If your child eats something from an
unlicensed vendor, or they set up a stall right outside the entrance to your
house, would you still agree with this way of making a livelihood?"

In 2000, Shi Jianhua and Fang Jinqun got married in
An'qing (Anhui) and went down to Shenzhen to find work. At first, they
went to Nantou. "We had both learned how to use computer software.
So we found a place in Nantou and started a software training class."
The first class began in 2001 and had many students. They were
hopeful, but then business deteriorated. "The main reason was that we
had no money to take out advertisements. By the end of 2006, we closed
down the business."

In 2007, the two went to live with Fang Jinqun's parents.
They tried to run a print shop, but they lost their investment.
Finally, Fang's father obtained some shoe pads and socks, and they made some
money by selling them in the street. Thus, the two became vendors on
the Walmart overpass.

At first, there were just a couple of vendors there
selling shoe pads and socks. This year, there were five or six vendors
selling clothes, decorative items, etc. Fang Jinqun said that they
earned only about one to two thousand RMB per month. Recently, law
enforcement has become tougher and they barely make enough money to get by.
Over the past three months, they can only set up during the morning and
evening rush hours as well as lunchtime. During the weekend, the
inspections are less rigorous and they can set up the whole day there.
Their income came primarily from weekend sales.

The couple have a dream: "We would like to have a store
for children's accessories. But we made inquiries and we don't have
the money to find a store space and pay the rent. So we have to keep
selling in the street. Who wants to sell in the streets if they have
the money?"

Fang Jinqun recalled certain unpleasant incidents in her
encounters with the municipal administrators. "Last year, we had our
stuff confiscated twice. One time, there were twenty bags. The
other time, it was the shoe pads. The municipal administrators came
this month to confiscate stuff. I refused to give it to them, so they
took the table." Fang Jinqun said that her husband was very angry at
the time and she consoled him, "It was a good thing that they did not
confiscate the other stuff."

Xin'an Street's captain Liu said that there was no record
of the two alleged confiscations, so that may not be true. There was a
large-scale clean-up this month, and it is possible that the table had been
confiscated.

With so many contacts with municipal administrators, the
couple began to be familiarized with them. Fang Jinqun said that one
division captain told her after the incident: "Hey, how could he do that?
Was it necessary?"

When asked what she had to say to the municipal
administrators? Fang Jinqun wiped her tears but did not apologize: "I
hope that they don't overblow this incident. Municipal administrators
get wages, but ordinary people don't."

Among the four municipal administrators on the overpeass,
Fang Jinqun had seen three of them except for the one who got stabbed, Lian
Shitao.

There is a great deal of discrepancy among the
descriptions of what happened on that overpass. Fang Jinqun said that
she was holding a paper cutter, but she did not open out the
blade. This was the same as the last time: "The last time, my husband
moved some of the wares away, but I was not strong enough to move the rest
myself. The municipal administrators asked 'Do you want me to help?'
I used my camera phone to film him, because I can film him just as he was
filming me. I also took out my knife to intimidate him. It was
the same thing this time." Captain Liu said that Lu Guangwei's hand
was injured by Fang Jinqun's knife and had to be treated at the hospital.

Xin'an Street deputy secretary Zhao Junping said that the
Walmart overpass has been the focus of complaints: citizens complain that
their passage is blocked and the businesses complain that the law is being
violated.

Fang Jinqun said that when the municipal administrators
came, they wanted to detain the wares. Captain Liu said, "Usually, we
only take temporary custody if the vendors repeatedly ignore our advise.
We don't take the wares. We usually take the tools such as tables and
racks. In principle, if they are willing to admit their errors and
write a promise, we will return their stuff."

As for the two knife stabs, Fang Jinqun said that she only
realized after she saw the photos. "I can't guess why he did it.
If I knew that he had this knife, I would never let him take it with him.
I don't understand why he did it." After spending a sleepless night
down at the police station, Fang Jinqun is thinking about her husband and
the uncertain future of her family.

In the field of journalism, there is a famous saying: "You
are not afraid of missing an exclusive that nobody else has, but you have to
be afraid of being the only one who missed a story." However, this
New York Times exclusive story from The Editors claimed that China's
president Hu Jintao gave the keynote speech at the Bo'ao Forum.
However, not a single Hong Kong media outlet reported on that speech.
How about that? What can we say?

On April 24, 2009, 1,200 persons gathered together to sing
songs in praise of the motherland which is celebrating the 60th birthday of
the People's Republic of China. This sets a record.

Oh, surely there must have been much bigger choirs
elsewhere. Yes, but this one was organized by the Hefei City Prison
Bureau and the choir members are prisoners currently serving time. It is
believed that this is the biggest prison choir ever in China.

[021] A New And Improved <Joint
News Broadcast>? (04/26/2009) (Jin Conglin at My1510.cn)

Since inception, the <Joint News Broadcast> has been
described as a three-part program: In the first ten minutes, the state
leaders are very busy; in the middle ten minutes, the people of China are
very content; in the last ten minutes, the people outside China are living
in hot water.

There is now news that the State Administration of Film,
Radio and Television is recommending CCTV to set up an appraisal system for
the <Joint News Broadcast>. The first-generation <Joint News
Broadcast> announcers Zhao Zhongxiang and others have expressed support for
this recommendation, and offered their "evaluations." Zhao said that
not only does <Joint News Broadcast> need to be reformed, but the reforms
should have occurred a long time ago (see Nanfang Daily, April 22, 2009).

<Joint News Broadcast> began its first show on January 1,
1978. The contents included politics, economics, science & technology,
society, military, diplomacy, culture, sports and so on. At present,
it is the television news program with the highest audience rating and the
most influence in China. The reason why <Joint News Broadcast> has so many
viewers is not because it is a good program! The reason is that <Joint
News Broadcast> directly presents the positions of the central government.
This shows that the Chinese people are concerned about politics as well as
international affairs. More importantly, they are used to the format
of <Joint News Broadcast>.

<Joint News Broadcast> began in 1978. Why do they
have to reform only after people criticize them? Does it mean that
they wouldn't be reforming without the criticisms? After all, not
everybody holds opinions about <Joint News Broadcast>. I do not support
any changes to <Joint News Broadcast>, but it is because I simply do not
believe that they can come up with any content that is worth bothering with.
Will they present international news first? then the Chinese people?
and finally the leaders? Since this is <Joint News Broadcast>, what
can they possibly broadcast except those contents? The hairstyle of
the <Joint News Broadcast> announcers have not changed over the years.
Could the reformatting consists of new hairstyles for the announcers?

Comrade Zhao Zhongxiang said: "The purpose of <Joint News
Broadcast> is like the historical document and its text, or the train and
the railroad track. It will forge a consensus among everyone who can
then progress ahead under the leadership of the Party." We all know
that we cannot have everything. <Joint News Broadcast> has a hard time
trying to please both the government as well as thepeople. The needs
of the government are very simple: communicate its policies and messages.
The people are harder to please. Each year, CCTV works hard on its
Spring Festival Gala, but each year its ends up with a lot of messy
distractions that can hardly be said to please the audience.

I am worried that the reform of <Joint News Broadcast> may
end up pleasing nobody. Who is going to direct this reform? It
is definitely not Zhang Yimou, or Zhang Benshan. Who really
understands the needs of the government as well as what the masses think?
No matter what, CCTV will have to put in ten times as much effort for one
Spring Festival Gala for the reform of <Joint News Broadcast>. This
will be challenging.

CCTV <Joint News Broadcast> is known for its strict
discipline and seriousness. But even the CCTV workers are tired of the
old production processes and methods of <Joint News Broadcast>. This
is why the series of missteps known as "Make-up Gate," "Yawn Gate,"
"Misspeak Gate" and others occurred. For that reason, the reform of
<Joint News Broadcast> will not be just to meet market needs, but also
the needs
of the workers should be considered.

According to information, one reason that the higher-ups
want to reform <Joint News Broadcast> is the decline of audience ratings.
If CCTV want the audience ratings to rise, they need more realistic and
incisive news reporting. They cannot have the same old kind of news
reading that as soon as the announcer opens his mouth, we already know what
he is going to say next. If they become more incisive, they will
offend many local government officials or even higher-ups. Does CCTV
dare to do so? They will have to step on the knives one by one and win
over the audience one by one? Is there any possibility for this to
happen?

(Taipei
Times) Two PRC tourists killed in crane crash in Taipei.
By Shelley Shan and Mo Yan-chih. April 25, 2009.

The boom of a crane plunged 37 floors from a construction
site in Taipei City’s Xinyi District yesterday afternoon, smashing the back
end of a tour bus carrying 25 visitors from China, leaving two passengers
dead, another in critical condition and two slightly injured.

The tour group from Guangdong Province was on their way to
Taipei 101 when the boom fell and struck the bus in an alley between the
Xinyi Eslite Bookstore and Shin Kong Mitsukoshi Department Store. The rear
end of the bus was crushed by the impact.

[019] Whom Did Spencer
Lam Play For? (04/24/2009) How the biography of a favorite
soccer player/commentator is reported tells you where the newspaper lines up
on the political spectrum. The key is to note who he represented in the
1958 Asian Games and the 1960 Rome Olympics.

(The
Standard) Popular
football commentator Spencer Lam Seung-yi has died. He was 75. Lam was
one of the most popular football commentators on both radio and television
for more than 20 years, regaling fans with his colorful comments about
players' performances and vivid descriptions of play. Lam represented
Taiwan in the 1960 Rome Olympics.

(South
China Morning Post) Born in 1934, Lam began his professional career as a striker
for Eastern in the local First Division League. Then just 16, he was one of
the youngest players in the league's history. In 1958, when
Hongkongers could play for Taiwan, he
represented the island at the Asian Games in Tokyo, where the team won gold
after beating South Korea. Two years later, he represented Taiwan again as a
midfielder at the Rome Olympics.

(The
Sun)
林尚義，廣東南海人，十六歲加入甲組球隊，一九五八年代表中華民國勇奪亞運足球金牌，曾參加六○年羅馬奧運。(Lam
Seung-yi, Nanhai (Guangdong), joined a First Division football team at age
16, represented the Republic of China in
1958 to win the Asia Games gold medal, participated in the 1960 Rome
Olympics.)

(Oriental
Daily)
十六歲加入甲組球隊東方，之後在本港頂級球賽征戰廿載，一九五八年代表中華民國勇奪亞運足球金牌，亦曾參加六○年羅馬奧運，而亞運奪金時，其教練正是中國球王李惠堂，阿叔在一場預賽不聽教練安排，臨完場前由後場開上前線助攻一腳定江山。(Uncle
joined First Division football team Eastern at age 16 and played at the top
level in Hong Kong for twenty years, represented the Republic of China to win the Asia Games
gold medal in 1958, participated in the 1960 Rome Olympics; when they won
the Asia Games gold, the coach was Chinese football king Lee Wei-tong;
during one of the preliminary games, Lam ignored the coach's arrangements
and came up from the backfield to win the game with a goal in the final
minutes.)

(大公報)
「阿叔」十六歲便加入本港甲組足球隊，曾勇奪亞運足球金牌，六零年參與羅馬奧運，七十年代掛靴轉為職業「講波佬」。(Uncle
joined a First Division football club at age 16, won the Asian Games gold
medal and participated in the 1960 Rome Olympics. In the 1970, he
retired to become a football commentator.)

(頭條日報)
林尚義踢球的年代，正值本港足球水平極盛之時，其中最輝煌的成就，要數一九五八年代表台灣勇奪亞運足球金牌。(Lam
Seung-yi played football in an era in which Hong Kong football flourished.
The most glorious result was that he represented
Taiwan to win the Asian Games gold medal in 1958.)

(明報)
他曾參加1960年羅馬奧運會等10多次國際賽事，最威水莫過於曾代表中華民國贏得1958年東京亞運金牌。(He
participated in more than ten international competitions including the 1960
Rome Olympics. The most glorious moment was when he represented the Republic of China to win the 1958 Tokyo
Asian Games gold medal.)

[ESWN comment: The 1958 Asia Games
team and the 1960 Rome Olympics team consisted of players from Hong Kong who
played for the Republic of China. Lam Seung-yi and his Hongkonger
teammates played as Chinese players for China. They did not play for
Taiwan. It is doubtful that they would play for a team named Taiwan or
even Chinese Taipei.]

On December 1, 2008, <Network News> reporter Guan Jian was
taken away by Zhangjiakou (Hebei) police officers from a hotel in Taiyuan (Shanxi).
The case drew public attention. At the time, the police announced that
Guan Jian was suspected of taking a bribe as a non-state employee. The
<Caijing> reporter learned that Guan Jian was arrested for involvement in
the cover-up of a mining disaster in Weixian county (Hebei) and has been
charged by the Kangbao county procuratorate on March 27. The trial
will commence soon, with the charge now being changed to coercing a
transaction.

On December 1, 2008, Guan Jian was taken away by
unidentified persons from a Taiyuan (Shanxi) hotel. Fourteen days
later, the disappearance of Guan Jian was reported by the media, leading to
many speculations. The next day, the Zhangjiakou (Hebei) police
announced that Guan Jian had been detained for suspicion of receiving a
bribe. There was plenty of talk about the case.

Later, the reporter learned that the detention of Guan
Jian was connected to the cover-up of the 7-14 explosion at the Lijiagui
coal mine in Weixian county, Zhangjiakou city, Hebei province. This
incident took place on July 14, 2008, and 35 persons died. The
incident was exposed 85 days later.

After the disaster took place, the Zhangjiakou city
publicity department deputy director Chang Yifeng paid "gag fees" multiple
times to the media. In the indictment document from the Kangbao county
(Hebei) procuratorate, a great deal of details was disclosed.

The indictment document claimed that on July 16, 2008, the
<Network News> worker Feng Hu and Xu Jungang who were based in Datong city (Shanxi
province) learned about the 7-14 disaster through an informant. They
forwarded the information to the newspaper leader. Afterwards,
<Network News> chief editor Ren Pengyu arranged its top reporter Guan Jian
to investigate the case.

Around July 20, 2008, Guan Jian with Feng Hu and Xu
Jungang went to the coal mine site to investigate and obtained video
evidence that confirmed the 7-14 disaster. They attempted to interview
the State Land Resources Bureau and the Coal Resources Bureau without
success. Over the next two days, Guan Jian completed a report on the
7-14 mining disaster and sent it back to the home office via the Internet.
At the same time, he informed Ren Pengyu that he was heading to Zhangjiakou
the next day and he wanted the edited report sent directly there. Ren
Pengyu told Guan Jian that he would immediately edit the report.

On the afternoon of July 24, the indictment document
claimed that Guan Jian turned the report over to Zhangjiakou city publicity
department deputy director Chang Yifeng. After reading the report,
Chang said that the investigation of the 7-14 incident has not yet been
completed and he would get back to <Network News> after the investigation is
complete. Guan Jian said that the report has gone through the regular
process at the newspaper and "the decision to publish or not is beyond my
hands."

Later, the Weixian county vice-mayor in charge of
coal-related activities Wang Fengzhong read the report forwarded from Chang
Yifeng and asked Chang to "use whatever means possible to suppress the
report." The reporter learned that Wang Fengzhong is under
investigation by the relevant authorities, because he is the principal
decision-maker and executor of the cover-up.

Later, Chang Yifeng contacted Guan Jian and asked for a
delay of the report. Guan Jian said that he could not decide. So
Chang Yifeng contacted <Network News> chief editor Ren Pengyu, who said that
he could hold the report back but the details will have to worked out with
Guan Jian. Chang Yifeng contacted Guan Jian again. Guan Jian
said that since the chief editor agreed to postpone the report, "I don't
have an opinion, but you have to spend 540,000 yuan to buy three pages of
advertisements in <Network News>." After some further negotiations,
Weixian county agreed to buy two pages of advertisements worth 250,000 yuan,
as well as 30,000 yuan in newspaper subscriptions in return for the
temporary postponement of the report on the mining disaster.

When everything was done, Guan Jian took out a reel of
videotape, snapped the tape and handed it over to Chang Yifeng.
According to Guan, this was the video recording for the 7-14 mining
disaster. Chang Yifeng and his companions left the <Network News>
office and tossed the tape into a garbage receptacle. He had no
further contact with Guan Jian after that.

The indictment document said that the State Council began
in an investigation of the 7-14 mining disaster and found out about the
cover-up. Guan Jian called Chang Yifeng and wanted the two
advertisements for Weixian county be published as quickly as possible.
Chang Yifeng turned the project over to a subordinate. On September 25
and October 9, <Network News> carried full page ads for cultural tourism in
Weixian county.

As the cover-up was becoming unraveled, Chang Yifeng came
under investigation for paying "gag fees" to reporters and also receiving
bribes for himself. Chang Yifeng quickly produced a list of reporters
who received bribes, including Guan Jian.

The Zhangjiakou police began an investigation of Guan Jian.
On December 1, 2008, they took Guan Jian away from Taiyuan (Shanxi).
On the next day, they put Guan Jian under criminal detention for taking a
bribe as a non-state employee.

On January 7, 2009, the Zhangjiakou procuratorate obtained
authorization to arrest Guan Jian for "coerced transaction." On March
9, the case was assigned to the Kangbao county court for trial.

In the indictment by Kangbao procuratorate, "Guan Jian
used the information that he had on the 7-14 mining disaster as his
bargaining chip and threatened to disclose the truth about the 7-14 mining
disaster. He applied mental pressure on Weixian and forced them to
come up with 250,000 yuan in gag fees in an illegal transaction" and
"therefore he should bear criminal responsibility for coercing a
transaction."

Under the <Criminal Law Code>, a coerced transaction means
the use of violence and threats to force others to buy products, provide
service or receive service. This is a serious offense punishable with
not more than three years of imprisonment with possible fines.

The indictment document showed that <Network News> chief
editor Ren Pengyu has returned the money. The Kangbao procuratorate
has also obtained information that other <Network News> persons have coerced
transactions with other places in Zhangjiakou city in recent years.

At the time, it is not clear whether <Network News> will
be held accountable over the Guan Jian case.

[017] Global Times Is
Home Base For Angry Youth (04/23/2009) (Zhang Wen at My1510.cn)

April 20 marked the debut of the English-language version
of Global Times. At the launch cocktail party, People's Daily
publisher Zhang Yannong gave a speech in which he said that Global Times is
a major international news newspaper that the People's Daily publishes.
Since its debut in 1993, it has presented a real world to the Chinese
readers, continually satisfying the right of Chinese readers to be informed
about international affairs and thus receiving broad acceptance.

The Global Times chief editor Hu Tinjin said in his speech
that Global Times has increased information exchange between China and the
rest of the world, so that each side can see the complexity and diversity of
the other side and hence decrease mutual misunderstanding.

When I read the speeches of these two gentlemen, I had to
laugh inside. This is not because I harbor any dark thoughts, but
because of the result of my long-term attention paid to Global Times as a
Chinese media worker.

What kind of "real world" did Global Times present to the
Chinese readers over the past 16 years? In my view, it is a false
world in which China is still being besieged by hostile western powers like
old times.

In this old world, China is being harassed by the western
capitalist countries who are still bent on destroying China. The old
western enemies led by the United States are still hostile to China.
Japan, India and the South East Asian countries are all demonizing China.

Overall, China still faces a dangerous world in which the
international situation is becoming increasing severe. Under such
circumstances, this is only going to increase the misunderstanding and
hostility between China and the rest of the world. How can there be
"any decrease in misunderstanding"?

For example, Global Times never explains the American
separation of powers (the executive, the legislative and the judiciary
branches of government) to Chinese readers. They do not explain the
differences between the legislature and the government to their readers.
When the U.S. Congress or other social groups make anti-China legislative
proposals, Global Times does not care what the President thinks and they
will report it as the position of the United States.

For example, Global Times never explains the political
system in France to the Chinese readers. They don't explain the
leftist background of the mayor of Paris, who opposes Sarkorzy and that the
Snow Lion flag of Tibetan independence hanging in front of city hall was
opposed by the Sarkorzy administration.

For example, Global Times never explains the democratic
systems in Hong Kong and Taiwan to its readers in any detail. They
don't tell their readers about the importance of protecting human rights, as
well as the social calm and order under these systems. On the
contrary, they keep playing up the street demonstrations in Hong Kong and
Taiwan as well as the chaos inside their legislatures.

Over the course of a dinner, a Global TImes editor
answered the criticisms from others by saying that the headline stories in
Global Times are based upon the feedback from the various distributors
around the country and therefore they are satisfying what their readers
want.

I objected that since China is fertile earth for extreme
nationalism, a newspaper which is a public tool bears the responsibility for
enlightening and leading the public instead of having no principles in front
of the public on account of money.

It is possible to attract plenty of advertisements by
being objective and neutral. The success of the Southern Daily Group
is proof. Global Times is horrible not just because it is catering to
but because it is often stimulating and manipulating extreme nationalism.
As a result, the new generation cannot look objectively at the world with
many young people being narrow-minded and bigoted in their international
views. Global Times is one of the biggest home bases for Chinese angry
youth.

So Global Times now has an English-language edition.
It claims to "use a rational and open-minded attitude to report and
interpret important news in China and the world through the Chinese
perspective." It inherits the "objectivity and acuity of the
Chinese-language Global Times, with the style of not avoiding sensitive
issues. The reporting will be even broader than the Chinese edition.
The world can see a dynamic world and listen to the sincere and candid
voices of the Chinese people."

Frankly, I think that Global Times is likely to succeed.
As long as it stimulates and manipulates extremist nationalism just like the
Chinese-language Global Times, there will be a market for it in China.
As to whether its reporting will be "rational" or "open" and whether its
voice will be "sincere" and "candid," it is doubtful.

It would not matter if this was such for
self-entertainment and self-deception. But if as Associated Press
says, "the publication of the English-language Global Times reflects the new
soft power being promoted by China to set up a worldwide reputation," then I
must say that this grand vision will likely fail. Westerners do not
believe in mouthpieces and they are not so easily fooled.

The person who exposed <The Municipal Administrator's
Practical Guide To Law Enforcement> on the Internet is Nanjing city Xuanwu
district municipal administrator Zhao Yang. It is perhaps the most
famous municipal administrator on the Internet because he has published many
essays about municipal administrative problems over the years. In
2002, he established the "Municipal Administrator Home" forum the Xici
Hutong BBS and made many self-critical and scandal-exposing essays there.

"I have been transferred several times, and I have been
criticized by my supervisors," said Zhao Yang. He regards the Internet
exchanges as a way of letting "the outside word see the true situation of
municipal administration" and therefore he continues to write about various
problems, including more than 1 dozen posts on excerpts from <The Municipal
Administrator's Practical Guide To Law Enforcement>.

Yesterday, Zhao Yang was interviewed by Southern
Metropolis Daily. Although he does not agree with the guideline "to
make sure that no blood is visible on the face and no wounds are observable
on the body" and although he is opposed to "violent law enforcement" and
although he is sympathetic with small businessmen and vendors (sometimes
even helping them to find work), he often used violent methods to enforce
the law because he cannot accomplish his mission otherwise.

Q. You don't seem to agree with certain presentations in
the book, but why were these methods chosen in the "official training"?
A: This book reflects reality relatively. There are many technical
things that are very practical. For example, the part about how to
intimidate resisters is very useful. As another example, the book
explained that when there are many spectators around, you should assume a
moderate attitude. When there are fewer people, you can use forceful
techniques. This is all you can do when you encounter violent
resistance.

Q. This is the only way?
A. In the present reality, you can't get anything done if you don't follow
this way. For example, your supervisor issues order to evict all the
curbside stands. This is hard to do. What should you do?
You can block them out, but as soon as you do so, you will encounter violent
resistance. Under the pressure, is there any way to avoid violence?
If you fail to accomplish your mission, you will flunk your evaluation.
Take us as an example. Suppose the order was to have no curbside
vendors. The supervisors comes around to inspect and we get fined 40
yuan for each curbside vendor present. Some of our law enforcement
colleagues gets fined 500 or 600 yuan a month. So the relationship
between municipal administrators and street vendors is one of life and
death. To a certain degree, this book reflects reality. We can
also see from the book just how severe the situation has gotten to.

Q. What is the root of the problem?
A. I feel that the municipal administrators are a local law enforcement
force. This means that the various local municipal administration
teams have different equipment, they lack a national set of laws and they
are of uneven quality. There are different levels of municipal
administrators. Some of them are public servants in charge of law
enforcement, and they basically don't go into the streets. There are
the law enforcement squads who are business units. Underneath them are
the assistants who are hired from the outside and therefore may have many
poor-quality persons. They all wear the same uniforms, so nobody knows
who is a permanent or temporary employee.

More importantly, a local law enforcement team will obey
the orders of local leaders. Therefore, the image of a local municipal
administration squad depends largely on the ideas of the leader. Some
municipal leaders are open-minded and so the administrators are more gentle
with the vendors. Other municipal leaders are more demanding and so
the administrators use more force.

Q. But municipal administrators usually have lousy images.
A. The reason why municipal administrators have lousy images is that their
leaders are being evaluated on their accomplishments. When their
supervisors come and see that the streets look messy, they lose on
impression. Thus, the managers are under pressure. It is not
enough for the people to judge.

[015] City University
Gets The 64 Limelight Again (04/23/2009) For the previous
attention-getter, please see
Global Voices Online.

(HKGolden
Forum) Here is the cover story in the April issue of City
University Monthly:

The headline asks: "The City University Student Council,
how can you forget '64'?" The opening line is: "Year nineteen
eighty-nine, month June, fourth day, Communist Party Secretary-general Hu
Yaobang suddenly passed away due to illness, the students held commemorative
activities, they expressed their discontent with the various ills in
society." This has drawn strong reactions all around the Hong Kong
internet forums, because the sentence can be read as factually inaccurately
stating that Hu Yaobang died on the fourth day of the month of June in the
year nineteen eight-nine.

The Student Editorial Committee responded with a public
notice:

Some readers have made inquiries about the headline of
the April Issue of City University Monthly. We respond here.

The readers point out that Hu Yaobang was no longer the
Communist Party Secretary-general at the time of his death; furthermore,
Hu Yaobang did not pass away on the fourth day of the month of June in the
year nineteen eight-nine. Some readers believe that the writer was
unclear in presenting the aforementioned information, which led to
misunderstanding among readers.

After discussing this issue, we decided that this essay
was indeed unclear in places and the cited information was lacking in
precision. We sincerely welcome the reader feedback, and we will
make thorough reviews before we publish the next issue.

Our committee welcomes fellow students to continue to
provide feedback about our publications.

A student posted a response underneath:

When a mistake becomes lack of clarity
When inaccuracy becomes misunderstanding
It is no wonder that someone before say that it is "somewhat problematic"
to say that there was a massacre on the fourth day of June
This student made a JUDGEMENT, not an OPINION
You refuse to admit your error, and you even dare to use your lousy
Chinese writing to get away?
You are a mere City University Editorial Committee. Why use
officialese on me?

Note: There is a byline on the article, and a human flesh
search has been run on the author of that essay.

Democratic Progressive Party member Lai Mao-hsiung (賴茂雄)
was interested in running for parliament, but he was handicapped by being
yet another unknown candidate So he decided to legally change his name
to Lai Ching-lin (賴勁淋).
What is so good about this name? It is a homonym for Lai Ching-lin (賴勁麟),
who is a well-know member of parliament. Candidates can also choose to
state a nickname, so the former Lai Mao-hsiun (and new Lai Ching-lin)
chose "Legislator" as his nickname.

The preliminary primary election within the Democratic
Progressive Party was based upon a survey to gauge public support. In
the survey, one question was supposed to be: "Do you know this candidate's
nckname?" So if the interviewer asks "Do you know Lai Ching-lin's
nickname or alternate name?" and the interviewee answers, "Oh, that
member of parliament," the new Lai Ching-lin gets points. Given the
present circumstances, that question has been excluded from consideration.

Nevertheless, this ersatz edition of Lai Ching-lin ended
up with the second highest score and will move on the next round ahead of
two other rivals The real Lai Ching-lin was not amused: "I think that
this is unfair to others. The Democratic Progressive Party ought to
set up some rules and regulations, or else it would be even more chaotic in
the elections."

The statement from the Democratic Progressive Party was:
"The results are out. It is inconvenient for us to comment here
whether fairness was affected."

Xici Hutong
is a famous BBS forum in China. A few years ago, someone came up with
the idea of having a real-life Xici Street District in Nanjing to provide
Internet users with a place to gather and spend money. At first, this
seemed a good idea. Shortly afterwards, all sorts of other
Internet-related businesses began to spout up all over the city. Today
the Xici Street District is a dying business district. Therefore, a
special apology ceremony was held with the big banner "I was wrong" to
acknowledge the failed business model. The Xici Street District will
have a different kind of model in the future that does not rely solely on
the Internet economy.

The Legislature proved yesterday that it is the source of
chaos in Taiwan! Kuomintang legislator Lee Ching-hua criticized the
Democratic Progressive Party legislator Chiu Yi-ying that she "should get
some style and family upbrining" and called her a "shrew." An angry
Chiu attacked Lee from behind and administered a slap to his face. The
two camps then engaged in a physical tussle. The meeting was then
adjourned without hearing any reports about cross-strait affairs.

Afterwards, Lee Ching-hua went to the Taipei District
Prosecutor's Office to charge Chiu Yi-ying with assault and public insult;
Chiu said that she would file charges of public insult against Lee the next
day and also said that she will not let "a low-class mainlander escape the
long arm of the law." But citizens and scholars are extremely annoyed
at how the legislators from both sides won't engage in regular business but
only know how to set bad examples for children in front of tv cameras.
One scholar that the Legislature resembles an "insane asylum." Another
scholar said, "The most regrettable thing about this violent incident is
that it proved what Hong Kong actor Jackie Chan say that 'Taiwan is too
chaotic.' It is wrong to hit someone and to use gender-colored terms
to curse other people. But Chiu Yi-ying was also wrong to curse Lee
out as a low-class mainlander. Both sides need to improve their
manners!"

Internet comments:
- One has a cheap mouth, and the other has zero EQ (emotional quotient)
- A bunch of idiots who just finished criticizing Jackie Chan a couple of
days ago, but now they are showing that he was right. They are
retarded.
- Blue or green, verbal and physical violence must be deplored.
- So it is alright now to hit someone if they curse you!
- Stop using your parents as the excuse. This is really disgusting!
She hit someone and wants to change the subject.
- She has the nerve to say that "she hit someone in order to preserve her
good name."
- It was a good smack ... I don't like that family of Americans.
- Lee Ching-hua spoke inappropriately and provocatively.

Do you approve of Chiu Yi-ying hitting Lee Ching-hua for
scolding her?
31%: Approve -- Lee Ching-hua deserves to be hit for his cheap talk
53%: Disapprove -- this proves that Chiu Yi-ying is a shrew with poor family
upbringing
16%: No opinion

This book is currently a very hot topic of discussion on the
Internet, because people have discussed certain astonishing paragraphs.

[translation]

1. Do not let those who oppose you off easily. Take
your opponent onto your law enforcement vehicle and bring him down to either
the police station or your office. Ask them where they come from? How
long have they been here? How dare they use violence to resist the law?
Do they know what appropriate penalties they should receive for the serious
offense today?

2. Do not use violent methods to enforce the law in front
of the public. If you cannot avoid the presence of spectators, you
should employ more moderate efforts.

3. Plan and make moves against violent resisters of law
enforcement. You must pay attention to make sure that no blood is
visible on the face, no wounds are observable on the body and no witnesses
are around. You should complete your action in one rapid action
sequence. You should not leave any trails. Once you decide to go
ahead, you must act cleanly without any hesitation. You must apply
full force.

The reviews are in and they're
not good for
TVB. Hundreds of people have written to the Hong Kong Film
Awards Association to complain about the broadcaster's handling of the
awards show on Sunday, with viewers faulting editing decisions and the
timing of advertisements.

Some viewers complained about TVB's decision to cancel a
segment paying tribute to filmmakers who died in the past year and to show a
shortened version of Josephine Siao Fong-fong's acceptance speech for a
lifetime achievement award.

Viewers were also upset that the broadcaster cut short a
speech by Paw Hee-ching, who won best actress, in which she thanked ATV,
TVB's competitor.

Despite cutting the segments, TVB kept a part in which
best supporting actor nominee and co-host Louis Fan Siu-wong let slip a
swear word while on stage.

In handling out the best newcomer's award, Prudence
Liew said: "Many newcomers are like mud nowadays. Worse yet, they
are soft mud which won't stay on the wall."

Sammo Hung commented on Jackie Chan for his recent
remarks at the Bo'ao Forum: "What he said did not represent the Seven
Little Fortunes, and the other things that he said does not represent the
people of Hong Kong either."

In accepting the best male supporting actor's award,
Liu Kai Chi said, "Here, I am very thankful to God for giving me the
talent to act."

In presenting the best actress Paw Hee-ching, the
master of ceremony Sandra Ng first said: "Sister Paw represents Asia.
She is the representative from ATV. Awesome?" This drew broad
laughter among the audience.

In her acceptance speech, Paw Hee-ching thanked her
colleagues over at ATV. Then master of ceremony Sandra Ng said that
TVB senior executive Virginia Lok will be displeased. The other
master of ceremony Eric Tsang then said: "She wouldn't, but that segment
will definitely be excised." Indeed, TVB excised that part of the
speech.

In chatting on stage, Louis Fan Siu-wong talked about
the hardship involved in costume dramas, because the rock inside the shoe
can be very (obscene term) painful. (Apple
Daily) In a telephone interview, Fan said: "We were trying
to figure out what to say three minutes before we went on stage.
Because the preparation was inadequate, I improvised. I have been
doing films in mainland China recently, so I had to switch between
putonghua and Cantonese, so I might have slipped my tongue. How can
I utter an obscene term on such a grand event? I don't usually use
obscenties." He also said, "My manager said that it sounded like an
obscene term. If that upsets people, I really have to say sorry."

But the most talked about story of the film awards is about
Lynn Xiong's nipple.

Yesterday is the day when Wu Baoquan goes from the
detention center in the city of Ordos (Inner Mongolia) into the local
prison. If his appeal fails, Wu Baoquan will have to spent the next
one year and eight days in prison.

On April 27, Wu Baoquan was arrested in Shenyang city
because he made comments on the Internet that insulted and libeled the
government as well as individual persons. After a series of judicial
steps including a trial, an appeal, an increased sentence, another appeal
and a sustained sentence, Wu learned on April 17 that the Ordos Middle Court
has upheld the original sentence and he will have to serve prison from April
29, 2008 to April 28, 2010.

On April 19, this newspaper reported this Inner Mongolian
case that was analogous to the Wang Shuai case. The difference was
that Wang Shuai received an official apology as well as state compensation.
But Wu Baoquan was arrested out of state, sentenced to one year in prison at
the first trial and had the sentence increased to two years at the second
trial. This story created a stir on the Internet at the various major
forums. But at the Ordos forums at Baidu and elsewhere, discussion was
limited.

Beginning yesterday afternoon, netizens began to notice
that discussion on this case was restricted at the Ordos forum at Baidu.

"I just went into the Ordos forum and I found that I
cannot make comments," netizen "hndn" explained over at KDNet. Upon
entering the Ordos forum, people were greeted with a notice: "Sorry, this
forum is presently only accepting comments from administrators and
experienced users who have registered for sufficiently long time."
This reporter personally verified yesterday that the notice exists.

Apart from limiting comments, there were also signs of
deletions. The reporter noted at 8:04pm last night, "QWEyoume" posted
<Ordos is counterattacking, go netizens> at China.com to comment on the
situation at the Ordos forum at Baidu. Half an hour later at 8:30pm,
the reporter saw that the post had been deleted and is only viewable through
the Baidu cache.

At the same time, another netizen "zhangfei2002" noted
that People's Net, the Ordos bar, Sohu and other websites are deleting the
posts about Wu Baoquan.

<Ordos is counterattacking> wrote "hndn." Many
netizens think that the deletion of the posts about Wu Baoquan showed that
the local government is "starting an Internet block" whereby the "local
government officials want to use their powers to take away our speech
rights."

In the real world, Wu Baoquan is not the first netizen to
have been convicted of a crime for making comments on the Internet.
But he is the first netizen who is reported to have his sentence increased
after a re-trial. Significantly, the story about the Henan provincial
government apologizing publicly to Wang Shuai had just been a hot news story
just before this.

According to a veteran netizen, "the comments on the Wu
Baoquan case are the biggest in numbers in my experience." As soon as
the case of Wu Baoquan was made public, the related posts spouted up like
fountains at the various major forums.

Apart from re-posting the reports by this newspaper on the
Wu Baoquan case, the netizens are also discussing the case, calling for
"rational approaches" and voicing their support for Wu Baoquan.

Other netizens aimed at the forum administrators for
limiting postings: "Limiting comments is a sign of insanity" and "limiting
comments can only achieve the opposite effect." Some netizens even
thought about flooding the forums.

The Ordos forum administrator replied that he was not
responsible for limiting comments: "We don't have the power to do so."
At the same time, he also denied that he was deleting comments. He
said that Baidu usually do so only after receiving complaints.

Baidu admits that they are the ones who are limiting
comments. They explained that they are doing so in order to avoid the
flooding of the forum: "We have noticed that there is a lot of discussion on
this case, with many comments being made repeatedly to flood the forum.
We are limiting comments in order to protect the rights of netizens.
Previously registered netizens are not restricted in making comments.
Unregistered netizens are also not restricted in reading the comments."
This person also explained that the limitations are temporary measures.

But this person declined to comment on whether they are
deleting posts due to pressure from the relevant departments.

Yesterday, Chongqing announced the postponement of price
hikes for public transportation to the cheers of netizens.

The local Chongqing websites stated unequivocally that
Internet public opinion was critical in the decision. Although some
netizens used extreme language, "the relevant Chongqing department showed
rationality, tolerance and restraint by letting various ideas to ferment and
public opinions to express themselves fully. This is a classical case
in which the millions of Chongqing citizens joined in making a public policy
decision in the information age."

The common netizens are happy not just because
transportation prices will not be rising, but they are happy to have
participated in the campaign and achieved the goal. "They were happily
surprised to attain victory so quickly." They had commented on the
Internet, they produced and promoted the anti-price-hike t-shirts, they
"lobbied" every representative of the hearing committee ... as the
authorities stated, Internet public opinion has entered the process of
public policy-making.

Yesterday, the Chongqing Price Bureau reported on its
website: "After investigation, the municipal government has decided to
postpone the proposed price reforms for three reasons. First, The
sustainable development of public transportation is a complicated process in
which price reforms is just one aspect that must be considered in the full
context of the overall reform. Secondly, the public transportation
price reform proposal has to be perfected by incorporating the opinions from
all sides. During the hearing, many recommendations were offered.
The relevant departments need to digest and study them and then proposed a
practical proposal for price reforms. Thirdly, there is presently a
global financial crisis and the economic conditions of our city is not
ideal. At a time, when our citizens have to deal with certain economic
problems, this is not the right time to introduce price reforms."

This report instantly became the hot topic for the local
Chongqing websites such as Longhua, Chongqing News and others. In the
commentary essay <Internet democracy has become people's democracy:
Chongqing postpones public transportation price hikes>: "We are sincerely
happy about the democratic and open-minded action of the Chongqing policy
decision-makers. History will remember this moment when Internet
democracy became people's democracy."

At the April 17 hearing on the price hikes, all speakers
other than those who represent the management were opposed to the price
reforms. Outside the hearing hall, many netizens wore t-shirts that
opposed the price hikes in silence protest. China News reported their
action together with photographs. The news report immediately appeared
at all the news portals and drew strong attention. Thus, the actions
of certain netizens became a national news story.

Among the protestors was one netizen who established two
QQ groups that were organized to oppose the price hikes. It was the
netizens in these two groups who printed the anti-price-hike t-shirts.

On April 13, this newspaper reported that the
anti-price-hike t-shirts had been confiscated by the police. This drew
Internet attention. According to the netizen who paid for those
t-shirts, the confiscated t-shirts have not yet been returned to him.
He said that the original intent was to print 1,000 t-shirts. The
first batch contained 300 t-shirts, of which the police confiscated 88.
So the other batches were not printed. So far more than 100 t-shirts
are out in circulation outside.

The QQ group netizens have discussed these t-shirts.
Many netizens joked that if the police had not confiscated those t-shirts,
the case might not have been such a big deal. As such, the Three
Gorges police station should receive a flag of honor for their efforts.
Yesterday, certain netizens even took to the streets in a performance art
action in the form of a relay run in the five major districts of Chongqing.
Every relay runner signed the t-shirt upon finishing his/her leg and pass
the t-shirt on to the next runner. There was no interference over the
several hours of the event.

Apart from Internet commentary and t-shirt production, the
netizens also contacted every speaker at the hearing. The Chongqing
municipal government had published the contact information for every
speaker. So the netizens called the speakers and expressed their
views. They also helped the speakers to collect the public
transportation pricing plans for various other cities and other related
information. The most impressive speaker was the expert Yang Shenghong
who spoke with several netizens in his office. Some speakers even
joined the QQ groups, so that the netizens knew about the location of the
hearing even before the media did.

More interestingly, the two most fervent netizens actually
do not use public transportation much themselves. They were interested
in this case because they thought that the price hikes were unreasonable.
The key was that the public transportation system is a monopoly,

According to a news report in Chongqing Morning News on
April 19, the director Lu Chuan disclosed that the episode of the bodies of
the dead "comfort women" being tossed onto the trucks used female university
students who were completely nude and unafraid to go before the camera.

Even before the movie <Nanjing! Nanjing!> is shown to the
public, it has already drawn a great deal of public attention. The
first reason is that the Nanjing massacre was a serious atrocity committed
by the Japanese army during their war against China. The second reason
is that the movie used realistic techniques to represent the bloody scenes
in this awful tragedy.

The director Lu Chuan used fully nude female university
students in order to depict the beastly acts of the Japanese army in Nanjing.
He only wanted to use the sufferings of Chinese women in this massacre to
show the historical precept that "being backwards means being oppressed."
He only wanted to shock all Chinese people and make them remember this
ignominy forever.

Unexpectedly, Lu Chuan's realistic representation has
drawn many undeserved criticisms. Certain people talk about needing to
remember history, but they will not permit any realistic representation of
that history. When they learned that female university students played
"comfort women" in the nude, they wielded their big moral sticks to denounce
that the use of young nude Chinese girls is like rubbing salt into the
wound.

Actually, these moralists are misreading <Nanjing! Nanjing!>
when they denounced the use of nude female university students. When a
movie with a historical subject deviates from the historical truth, it is a
waste of time for the audience and it also loses any meaning or significance
as a historical movie.

In looking at western movies about the Second World War,
we see that terrible battle scenes and the bloody massacre scenes did not
make the audience feel that this was rubbing salt into wounds. In
Steven Spielberg's <Schindler's List>, the ovens that were used to
incinerate corpses and the trucks that were used to transport bodies managed
to show the atrocities of the Nazis and make people yearn for peace,
humanity and justice.

Herein lies the difference between eastern and western
cultures. When people say that the use of female university students
to portray "comfort women" is to rub salt into the wound, they only show
that the Chinese people are afraid and unwilling to confront history.
The result is that more tragedies occur in China repeatedly.

Who was the one who brutally ripped off the clothes off
the Chinese women in Nanjing? Who forced these Chinese women to let
their naked bodies be abused by those beasts? On the surface, it would
seem to be those Japanese soldiers who were devoid of humanity. But
behind this bloody tragedy, it was the Chinese warlords who created a weak
nation together.

We can say that the director Lu Chuan did not rub salt in
the wound when he made the movie <Nanjing! Nanjing!>. On the contrary,
the movie is a wake-up call for all those who only know to say that China is
not happy. While nude female university students playing "comfort
women" cannot be elevated to an act of patriotism, their actions have
revived the issue of why the national tragedy took place in China in the
1930's.

[Administrative Notice] (04/18/2009)
Finally, the last scheduled event of the Little Reunion campaign is over!
On April 16, I delivered a speech at the Peking University Centennial Memorial
Multimedia Centre with more than 50 media outlets present. On April 17,
I went through a whole day of media interviews. On April 18, I returned
to Hong Kong and I am ready to resume a normal life again. It has been
an astonishing time since the book was launched in Taipei on February 24.

How is Little Reunion doing now? Well, that is a tricky question.
In the United States, there is the Nielsen bookscan service that can provide a
reasonable portrait of what is happening in the distribution chain.
While that is not an exact count of actual retail sales, it is a reasonable
approximant. In Greater China, there is no such equivalent service.
Instead, one must rely on the reporting from certain bookstore chains, which
may not be reflective of overall sales.

According to the April 26, 2009 issue of Yazhou Zhoukan, Little
Reunion is:
#1 in Hong Kong
#1 in Taiwan
#2 in Singapore
#10 in Malaysia
#2 in Beijing (China)
out of top 10 in Shanghai (China)
out of top 10 in Guangzhou/Shenzhen (China)
out of top 10 in Chongqing/Chengdu (China)

According to
Publishing.com.hk, Little Reunion is:
#2 in Taiwan
#1 in Hong Kong
#1 in Macau
not ranked anywhere in China, Singapore or Malaysia

There is clearly a problem with how up-to-date the information is for certain
locales.

Here are some anecdotal evidence (or street talk) (note: I do not ask the
publishers for sales data -- they only supply me with semi-annual statements):
- In Taiwan, the book has gone into the eighth printing. Each printing
is said to be 10,000 or more.
- In Hong Kong, the book has gone into the sixth printing of the second
edition. Each printing is said to be either 3,000 or more.
- In mainland China, the book is said to have sold out its first printing of
300,000 within days. A second and a third printing are said to be in
progress. At the mainland Chinese online bookseller Dangdang, it is said
that one copy of Little Reunion is sold every five seconds.
Little Reunion is presently the bestseller for the week of April 6-12,
even though Dangdang did not begin selling until April 8.
In the city of Hanzhou, I was told that 2,500 copies were sold on the first
day alone. I do not know if this is true.

[Administrative Notice] (04/10/2009) I
have just returned from New York City to Hong Kong. The last three weeks
were spent on job -related activities to the exclusion of almost everything
else. At this time, I am relieved to find that the 2009 release of the
annual study will go smoothly. However, this does not mean that blogging
will resume immediately. There is one more piece of unfinished business:
the official launch of Little Reunion will take place on Thursday (April 16)
afternoon in the Centennial Memorial Multimedia Centre of Peking University.
This will be my first appearance in mainland China with respect to this book.
I will have to spend the next few days preparing for that talk, as my mind had
been completely away from Eileen Chang (or China, for that matter) over the
past three weeks. The book was going to be theoretically released on
April 8th, but the holidays led to one or two days' delay. It should be
available across China in most major cities right now. The reported
sales in places like Beijing, Shanghai, Nanjing, Hangzhou, Ningbo, Kunming and
so on suggest that the first print run will sell out quickly.

Meanwhile, my collection of news reports on Little Reunion has been growing
rapidly. Part 1 at 小团圆》新闻has most than 200 news reports and commentaries at around 1.2
megabytles. Part 2 spans
April 1 and April 9 at more than 800K. Part 3 was started at April 10 when
I returned to Hong Kong.

An Italian scientist predicted a major earthquake around
L'Aquila weeks before disaster struck the city on Monday, killing dozens of
people, but was reported to authorities for spreading panic among the
population.

The first tremors in the region were felt in mid-January and continued at
regular intervals, creating mounting alarm in the medieval city, about 100
km (60 miles) east of Rome.

Vans with loudspeakers had driven around the town a month ago telling locals
to evacuate their houses after seismologist Gioacchino Giuliani predicted a
large quake was on the way, prompting the mayor's anger.

Giuliani, who based his forecast on concentrations of radon gas around
seismically active areas, was reported to police for "spreading
alarm" and was forced to remove his findings from the Internet.

Italy's Civil Protection agency held a meeting of the Major Risks Committee,
grouping scientists charged with assessing such risks, in L'Aquila on March
31 to reassure the townspeople.

"The tremors being felt by the population are part of a typical
sequence ... (which is) absolutely normal in a seismic area like the one
around L'Aquila," the civil protection agency said in a statement on
the eve of that meeting.

"It is useful to underline that it is not in any way possible to
predict an earthquake," it said, adding that the agency saw no reason
for alarm but was nonetheless effecting "continuous monitoring and
attention".

As the media asked questions about the authorities' alleged failure to
safeguard the population ahead of the quake, the head of the National
Geophysics Institute dismissed Giuliani's predictions.

"Every time there is an earthquake there are people who claim to have
predicted it," he said. "As far as I know nobody predicted this
earthquake with precision. It is not possible to predict earthquakes."

Enzo Boschi said the real problem for Italy was a long-standing failure to
take proper precautions despite a history of tragic quakes.

"We have earthquakes but then we forget and do nothing. It's not in our
culture to take precautions or build in an appropriate way in areas where
there could be strong earthquakes," he said.

More than a week ago, a scientist little known in
earthquake circles made a bold prediction of a destructive earthquake in the
Abruzzo region of central Italy based on spikes in radon gas. Giampaolo
Giuliani went so far as to tell the mayor of a town there that it would
strike within the next 24 hours.

His deadline passed and for days, nothing happened.

Then, early Monday, a magnitude-6.3 earthquake struck near
the town of L'Aquila, sparking a controversy around the world about whether
Giuliani truly predicted the temblor or whether it was a fluke of timing.

"This happens all the time," said Tom Jordan, director of the
Southern California Earthquake Center, who is also principal investigator on
a worldwide project called the Collaboratory for the Study of Earthquake
Predictability. "People send out predictions based on various stuff.
It's always hard to evaluate."

The controversy around Giuliani is the latest twist in the maddening
scientific quest to predict earthquakes. Over the decades, many ideas have
been tested, including studies of cockroach activity along faults, ground
warping and the movement of air masses.

"Being able to predict earthquakes is the Holy Grail
of seismology," Caltech seismologist Egill Hauksson said. "The
more we try, the less progress we seem to make."

In 1975, scientists thought the riddle had been solved. Chinese government
officials detected foreshocks and successfully evacuated the area of
Haicheng before a magnitude-7.3 earthquake. Unfortunately, authorities were
not able to predict the Tangshan earthquake a year later, and several
hundred thousand people died.

Researchers said most of the ideas over the years have been discredited,
including the radon gas theory that Giuliani used when making his earthquake
prediction in Italy.

Soviet scientists appear to have done the pioneering work in the radon
field, correlating radon and thoron emissions in well water near Tashkent,
Uzbekistan, in the 1960s to an earthquake in 1966. China and Japan also
invested in radon research.

Interest in radon as an earthquake signal peaked in the 1970s in California,
said Susan Hough, who serves as scientist in charge at the U.S. Geological
Survey in Pasadena and is writing a book on earthquake prediction. In 1979,
for instance, scientists at Caltech and other institutions said they found
changes in gas levels in Southern California wells right before earthquakes
in Malibu and Big Bear that year.

"The whole thing deflated when the places where they had detected
[radon] had no earthquakes and earthquakes happened in different
areas," Hough said.

Giuliani, who is a technician at Italy's well-respected National Institute
of Nuclear Physics, appears to have spoken up about his radon data as early
as March 24, in an interview on the Italian blog Donne
Democratiche.

Warner Marzocchi, chief scientist at Italy's National Institute of
Geophysics and Vulcanology, said he first heard about Giuliani's prediction
around March 28, when the statements were broadcast on television and radio.

Residents of the Abruzzo region were already on edge because a series of
small earthquakes had been rattling the area for weeks, mostly around a town
called Sulmona, about 30 miles south of L'Aquila, Marzocchi said.

Giuliani told the mayor of Sulmona that a quake would strike in six to 24
hours, Marzocchi said.

The Italian Civil Protection Agency tried to downplay the predictions, but
some residents of Sulmona evacuated, Marzocchi said. They had returned by
the time the quake struck near L'Aquila, but there was no major damage in
Sulmona, he said.

"It's impossible to give credit to him," he said. "Nothing
happened for one week -- and in a different place!"

Giuliani's old-school predictions come at a time of progress in earthquake
forecasting, after the disillusionment of the 1980s and '90s, Jordan said.

Technological improvements have allowed scientists to collect more data at
fault lines and to generate complicated computer models based on reams of
historical earthquake statistics, Jordan said.

"To show you're doing better than guessing requires some very careful
testing procedures," he said. "We've got a whole series of models
that are being formally tested in California to see if they do a better job
of predicting earthquakes than other models."

The best models, he said, consider the whole cascade of foreshocks, main
shocks and aftershocks. The group is preparing a scientific paper on its
preliminary results, he said.

(Amsel at XYS.org)
Please do not jerk yourself off with the Italian earthquake prediction.
April 7, 2009.

After the L'Aquila earthquake in Italy, the local
government and earthquake researchers encountered the same troubles that
their Chinese colleagues had to deal with last year. The Chinese
reporters were inspired to write headline such as "government suppress
prediction" at Rednet. These moves are intended to compare
Italy's Gianpaolo Giuliani with the Chinese earthquake prediction masters at
last year's Wenchuan earthquake. So let us compare these two
'earthquake predictions.'

First, the two predictions had different coverages.

Giuliani's prediction is for the 24 hours beginning March
30 and the location is the city of Sulmona (which is 50 kilometers away from
L'Aquila." The time and place were very precise.

The ballyhooed earthquake predictions in China covered
large swaths of areas. None of them matched the Wenchuan earthquake in
time and location. The most hyped case was Geng Jingguo which
specified ten days before and after May 8th variously "somewhere in
China," "south of Lanzhou down to the border of Sichuan, Gansu and
Qingzhuang," and "150 kilometers within Hongyuan in Aba Prefecture
in Sichuan province. The two latter specified locations did not cover
the Wenchuan epicenter (which is more than 170 kilometers away from
Hongyuan).

Secondly, the precursor evidence is different.

Giuliani based upon the series of minor local earthquakes
as well as radon gas release. While these two indicators have high
rates of false positives, they are nevertheless factors that are related to
earthquakes. They are included among the five indicators accepted by
the International Vulcanology and Earth Interior Physics Society.

As for the predictions from these Chinese "national
treasures" and "maestros," they are all based upon Chinese
style "autonomous innovations such as magnetic storms (which are
related to solar activities but unrelated to earthquakes), "long
distance earth electricity" (which uses local signals to predict
earthquakes more than four thousand miles away). The evidence over the
year that there "abnormalities" have no significance for
prediction.

Thirdly, the actions after the predictions were made were
different.

Giuliani believed in his predictions and so he publicized
on the Internet and he also used loudspeaker trucks. After his
"predictions" were muzzles, some citizens demanded the government
to apologize to him.

Meanwhile, the prediction masters of China keep lying year
after year. They have no confidence in themselves, and so they will
only make private predictions because they say that the law prohibits
earthquake predictions. After the fact, they will claim that they are
heartbroken because their predictions turned out to be correct. But it
is hard to confirm that they actually made those life-saving predictions.

But Giuliani and the Chinese prediction masters share one
thing in common -- their predictions missed the earthquake. Giuliani
predicted the earthquake to occur within the 24 hours as of March 30.
The earthquake actually occurred on April 5. Giuliani predicted that
the location was Sulmona, where nothing happened on March 30 and only mild
damage was sustained when the earthquake hit L'Aquila on April 6. So
even if Giuliani's prediction was not muzzled, what does it matter?

Of course, Giuliani's misfortune was that he was not born
in China. If he were a Chinese earthquake predictor, he would have an
"internal prediction." An error of 50 kilometers one week
later would have attained first-class result status and provided proof that
"Chinese earthquake prediction leads the world." But
Giuliani's prediction is not being regarded as accurate by the National
Institute of Geophysics and Vulcanology and the US
California Institute of Technology researchers.

At the bottom of this, earthquakes are small-probability
events which are unlikely to be predicted accurately using scientific
methods. Therefore, the Italian scientists are concluding that the
important thing is to improve the quality of their buildings: "We
have earthquakes but then we forget and do nothing. It's not in our culture
to take precautions or build in an appropriate way in areas where there
could be strong earthquakes."

(New
York Times) Confusing Patterns With Coincidences
By Susan Hough. April 11, 2009.

In the aftermath of the earthquake at L’Aquila, Italy, on
Monday that killed nearly 300 people, splashy headlines suggested that these
victims didn’t have to die.

An Italian researcher, Giampaolo Giuliani, began to sound
alarm bells a month earlier, warning that an earthquake would strike near
L’Aquila on March 29. The prediction was apparently based on anomalous radon
gas concentrations in the air; the region had also experienced a number of
small tremors starting in mid-January. Mr. Giuliani was denounced for
inciting panic by Italy’s Civil Protection Agency, and he was forced to take
his warning off the Web after March 29 came and went without significant
activity.

Should Italian officials have listened? Should the public
have heeded the warnings? With 20-20 hindsight the answer certainly appears
to be yes. The real answer is no.

Scientists have been chasing earthquake prediction — the
holy grail of earthquake science — for decades. In the 1970s American
seismologists declared that the goal was reachable. Yet we have little to no
real progress to show for our efforts. We have a good understanding of the
planet’s active earthquake zones. We’re pretty good at forecasting the
long-term rates of earthquakes in different areas. But prediction per se,
which involves specifying usefully narrow windows in time, location and
magnitude, has eluded us.

The key question is, can we find precursors that tell us
that a large earthquake is imminent? Various phenomena have been
investigated: radon levels, changes in earthquake wave speeds, the warping
of the earth’s crust, even the behavior of cockroaches and other animals.

The game goes like this: you look back at past recordings
of X, where X is radon or whatever, and find that X had shown anomalies
before large earthquakes. But the problem is that X is typically what we
call a “noisy signal” — data that includes a lot of fluctuations, often for
varied and not entirely understood reasons — so finding correlations looking
backward is about as meaningful as finding animals in the clouds.

We do know that some earthquakes, including the L’Aquila
event, have foreshocks, but we can’t sound alarm bells every time little
earthquakes happen because the overwhelming majority — 95 percent or so —
will not indicate a coming major quake.

The public heard about Mr. Giuliani’s prediction because
it appears to have been borne out, albeit several days after he said the
earthquake would happen. But there are scores of other predictions that the
public never hears about. And that is a good thing because scientists have
yet to be able to accurately predict coming earthquakes. Investigating
precursors like radon is a legitimate avenue of research, but until and
unless the track record of a method is shown to be statistically
significant, making public predictions is irresponsible.

Progress is slow in developing prediction methods, since,
after all, they can be tested only by waiting for earthquakes to happen, and
the earthquakes we care most about, like the deadly 6.3 magnitude quake in
Italy, fortunately don’t happen every day. In the meantime, society’s keen
interest in the subject occasionally collides with deliberative research,
and misunderstandings like that involving Mr. Giuliani are the unfortunate
consequences.

The public would like scientists to predict earthquakes.
We can’t do that. We might never be able to do that. What people and
government can do is work to make sure our houses, schools and hospitals
don’t fall down when the next big one strikes, and that we’re all prepared
for the difficult aftermaths. We can look around our homes and our workplace
and think about what would happen to them if the terra firma suddenly ceased
being firm. We can stop worrying about predicting the unpredictable, and
start doing more to prepare for the inevitable.

Recently, Chinese bloggers Song Zude and Guo Degang have
been engaged in a battle of saliva. The squabble between the two began
in late February this year when one of the founders of the Deyun Society,
Zhang Wenxun passed away. Song Zude's "colleague" Liu Xunda
posted a blog essay titled <Guo Degang drove Zhang Wenxu to death over
control rights of the Deyun Society>. This essay claimed that Guo
Degang wanted to seize total control of the Deyun Society and therefore he
drove the society founder to death.

Shortly afterwards, Song Zude posted on his own blog about
<Little Shenyang cannot stay as popular at the end of 2009? and said that
"if every man in China becomes like Little Shenyang, then how far away
from destruction can China be?>

On March 20, Guo Degang told the media that the expert
critics of Little Shenyang only "know how to oppress pepole
shamlessly!"

On March 24, Song Zude pronounced the works of the two
(Gua Degang and Little Shenyang) as worthless, and their collaborative work
is a case of two bad persons working together.

On March 28, "Liu Xunda" wrote in this blog that
<Guo Degang is not the father of his son> and claimed that Guo was
impotent by nature and therefore the son cannot be his.

On March 30, Guo Degang wrote in his blog post <To live
in this world> that Song Zude was an eunuch who will be struck dead by
lightning.

On that same evening, Song Zude quickly replied in <On
other rotten facts about Guo Degang> and claimed that Guo drank urine
from girls everyday in the hope of curing his impotentence.

This mudslinging contest may be hard to judge, but the
netizens generally favor Guo Degang who is thought to be slightyl better in
terms of curses, sarcasms, ironies, etc.

According to informed sources, "Liu Xunda" is a
sock-puppet of Song Zude.

张爱玲DETACHED
(04/04/2009) The April issue of the
mainland Chinese magazine 《MING
明日风尚》includes
a special supplement on Eileen Chang. This magazine is still selling at
the promotional price of 10 RMB, and the 45 page photo-filled supplement is
worth the price in itself. This is something to buy and keep for
memory. How is this project financially viable? There is an
advertiser who sponsored it. There will no doubt be fundamentalists who
object to allowing advertisers to exploit her name. Well, of course, I
can sit back and do nothing for Eileen Chang. But that will draw the crowd on
the opposite end who will say that I do nothing ...

[001] Should I Get On Facebook?
(04/04/2009) At this time, the answer is a resoundnig NO because I
really really don't have the time and energy for that. However, I will
say that I would be a very interesting person on Facebook, because of the many
different things that I have done in my lifetime.

Here are some people to whom I have been connected in some way (and not just
peripherally) in my past:

Note: I have included three 'deceased' persons in the list above.
Deceased persons cannot open their own Facebook accounts, but these people all
have plenty of 'friends' who might do the same.

I do not regard this list as exceptional in any way. Every person's life
consist of experiences with various different segments of society in the
world. These segments may have little or no idea of how the others
live. Facebook is bringing these different segments together through the
common human nodes.